New wifi card for my Pocket PC

SanDisk Connect Plus Low Power Wi-Fi Card with 128 MB

This post is for those with a spare CF slot or looking to replace a dead-beat compact flash wifi card. The first thing I can say with confidence about this card is that the reception is better than that of my old Belkin Wifi card AND it's not so wide that it impedes the audio jack on my iPAQ h2210. My only fear is that this is not so low-power, fairing a bit over 2 hours in my estimates using a 900mah battery.

There are a couple of key features that make this a good card:

supported by MiniStumbler for wardriving

seems to have great reception (at a cost?)

For 29.99 (coupon code: Techbargains) at Surplus Computer with free shipping, it's a decent deal for casual use. The included PC Card adapter and 128 MB of flash memory are bonuses. Comes with a 90-day warranty.

Note: There's no WPA support, so if you're concerned with privacy, you'll have to be extra careful. There also doesn't seem to be a 'Flight Mode' to turn off the radio without unplugging the card (or using PocketWarrior). Drivers for PPC 2002/2003 available here.

https://www.zincorporation.com/media/

Missing pictures in Picasa

If you've noticed that small pictures are being grabbed and indexed by Picasa 2 but aren't appearing in the gallery, it's not a bug or anomaly. Just be sure to select View->Small Pictures.



Otherwise, they're hidden (too low-quality I presume) along with well, hidden pictures.

SOURCE: Frustration

Another R.R.

Publisher's Site

From George R.R. Martin, who happens to be the screenwriter of the Beauty and the Beast TV Series (making him the Hans Christian Anderson of the 21st century), comescame A Game of Thrones. It is heart-rending but undeniably absorbing and involving. It is involving because you get to know the characters really well; heart-reading because they hurt so much as they play their parts in Martin's cruel game.

The book is set in a world about 15just 10 years after a war that ended the reign of the Dragon-riding Targaryen family where the younger generation is young enough to look forward to the next, but the older are still suffering from the wounds the previous war, some plotting and others mourning. It is summer, but winter is coming and with it the unnatural forces of the land that had been only the stuff of old wives tales are gaining strength. Those plotting are themselves pawns in a strange and sinister conflict.

Each chapter is named after its protagonist and after each, I was tempted to jump the next one similarly named. Here's a hint: don't get too attached to the characters. Eddard Stark is the Lord of the North, who fought with King Robert to avenge the murders of their loved ones by the then reigning king. His honor is both his greatest strength and greatest weakness. His wife Catelyn of House Tully is a proud, but a loyal wife and loving mother to all her children, but not of Eddard's bastard son. Ned's kids find a litter of wolves left by a direwolf who choked to death on a broken antler, which is astonishing because they haven't been sighted in generations. Events draw the Starks from their northern stronghold beginning with the sudden death of the King's Hand, followed by a visit from the King himself. While Ned is honorable and strong, can he and his family survive the Game of Thrones, especially after the last round cost him almost all of his kin?

Fantasy elements in Martin's 700 page prologue are forebodingly played down by the characters who supposedly know better with the dragons extinct and spells and magic the stuff of old wives tales. By the end of A Game of Thrones, however, it's clear that it was all part of the plot. Of course, it's just the first book that I've gotten through and I've read 10 of Jordan's. This is on par with Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time in terms of the seriousness, but I still think Robert Jordan's work is more sophisticated and in some scenes less for the eyes of children. However, most of the principle characters are fairly young lordlings who are forced to grow up quickly as they inherit the burdens and intrigues of their houses. I heartily recommend the book. less

more

SOURCE: Christmas present from cousin, thanks Kathae for [the] R.R. observation.

Tablet Mac rumors mature

Categorized under yeah you've heard about it, but it's my blog

So, not only was Apple granted a patent for a Tablet-style Mac, and met with Intel about potentially using their chips, a prototype has been sighted and the concept has been corroborated by multiple 'sources'. (emphasis added)

...And it exists, honest, seen a prototype. Instant On, ASUS-Tatung whiteish looking, running a reduced version of OSX, with some funky start-up PDA like Apple icon menu. Touch only (white touch pen), least the version I saw.

The interesting thing that makes the Intel rumor more credible is that the talks were supposedly focused on low-power chipsets like the Centrino for the PowerBook (I think it's unlikely) or a tablet-style mac. Apple has denying rumors that it is ditching IBM's PowerPC chips in favor of Intel's and that makes sense. It wouldn't even be a PowerBook anymore.

Well, despite my longtime love of the Pocket PC, this is something I could use.

SOURCE: Engadget

iMac G3 upgrading

I bought tiger for the iMac G3 that Will found for me. It already had OS X on it so I figure it will run even better with Tiger.

SOURCE: Craziness

UPDATE (2:54 AM EST 5/26/05): I used Tiger for 5 days straight. Some cool stuff I was able to do: I used Skype on something other than my pocket pc (thank you built-in mic), used Eclipse for C, installed Firefox (although I mostly used Safari), RealPlayer, Windows Media Player, Xvid and DivX codecs (I didn't even do this on Windows but, alas, it was too slow), tried KeyNote and Pages, accessed files on my brothers Windows box. I learned how to change icon images (copy the image you want from Get Info dialog and paste it into the Get Info image of the target icon), how to turn off the constant hard drive spin downs via energy saver, enable full tab-key accessing (+8), use expose (Fs 9-12), learned how to keep dashboard widgets on the desktop (go to terminal and run the following command: defaults write com.apple.dashboard devmode YES, then run this: killall dock, then bring up dashboard [F12], drag your favorite widget and release it after pressing F12 again), and more. It was pure joy. Well, most of it.

Is this to come?

A new logo?

SOURCE: Google Groups: Gmail Generation

Losing the iPod

categorized under more-of-the-same

I was on the bus [yester]today and saw someone listening to music on an old CD player. First thought in my mind was, "This guy likes listening to music. He might be want to get an iPod." As the bus hopped along, the I heard the inevitable skip because his huge headphones that had been blasting fairly loudly literally skipped, despite the ESP logo on the player. I took the opportunity to get a confirmation from him that his player had indeed skipped. After he took off the the headphones, he admitted to having the player for way too long. I suggested that he buy one capable of playing MP3s referring to the truly affordable CD players that could play CD-Rs burned with 700MB of music.

Since he thought I meant a strict MP3 player and not a discman that could decode mp3s, he responded by saying that it was too expensive. I clarified to say that he could spend around $40 for a decent replacement that would play his existing CD collection. Surprised, he said he was actually looking into buying an iPod. I was right.

WOW. Here was someone who didn't seem to act or dress trendily (this is not a criticism) and not too familiar with new consumer technology who referred to a whole class of electronics by the one name that had first and most successfully penetrated the mainstream as a household name. "iPod" in his mind was probably for MP3 players what "palm pilot" is to PDAs. Today, someone who borrowed my iPAQ Pocket PC left a message on my door saying that he wanted to return my "palm pilot". Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

Here I'll quickly say that Palm Pilot is no longer a name being used by Palm, Inc. (or is it Palm One?) and was stricken from geek vocabulary as being a violation of Pilot pen company's trademark. Palm then went after Microsoft, which had been trying to sell it's haldheld form-factor devices as PalmPCs making them adopt the name Pocket PC. Anyhow, this is all old news, but people still call the darned things palm pilots and the darn copy machines Xeroxs. Some people do at least. Now, it is my understanding (from some conversations with someone who attended business school) that this is bad for a brand. It means you can't control what people thing about your brand name because it's associated with the whole darn industry.

Before we go on, I'll try to characterize as best as possible this person on the bus. He didn't know that the iPod has a rechargeable battery, which means he's never really researched the iPod as if he was going to get one, much less look at competing products. The fact that he didn't know of CD players that could play MP3s means he probably doesn't much about the iPod at all except that many people use it. He is also a commuter that presumably works and lives at home. He only listens to music on his portable player during the school year (he said he would put off upgrading because school was almost over).

But what I care about is whether it's a good thing that 1) the concept of an MP3 player still hasn't penetrated everyone and 2) the name people associate with modern MP3 players is the iPod. For both questions to be salient, my sample population has to be pretty darn representative. Let's assume it is. Before we can seriously consider the second question, we have to decide whether Apple's product is adequately unique for this not to happen. Remember to regular folks, a PDA (not public display of affection, but Personal Digital Assistant) is a PDA is a PDA and some people honestly cannot tell one from another. Or is the phenomenon I witnessed on the bus just a combination of iPod proliferation and insufficient marketing on the parts of Apple's competitors.

I have a feeling it was more of the latter, which means the iPod has a long way to go. Even in the first case, the iPod is sufficiently distinct and simply beautiful that it'd be hard for Apple to accidentally (vs. deliberately) allow the iPod brand to be diluted. But given this and that the previous assumptions are true, the iPod hasn't gotten to everyone. On the other hand, some say that the popularity of the iPod turns people away. I'd have to disagree. Sorry I'm falling asleep. Maybe I'll update this sometime tomorrow.

Show/hide rest

SOURCE: Ride on the A bus -> Exam

Housing found for the summer

I've decided to settle for an un-airconditioned dorm to live for my summer job at a nice company. I'm kinda scared, but I will have time to brush up (Mike knows how understated this is) before I move in around the 29th of May. They are a good place, relatively close (try extremely) to the site and extremely cheap.

I didn't really consider anything too expensive but got Wifi, and an airconditioned lounge area : )

Hope I get along with my roommate.

SOURCE: More procrastination :/

I can make short posts too

Trying to study... Bluetooth for linux doesn't work for me because my hardware isn't being properly recognized. I'm still only an extreme newbie to linux :/ Even after that Linux OS project (spoiled by Mike's shell scripts), if it doesn't work automagically, I'm in trouble.

SOURCE: Exams week -> Finish

So,how appropriate that my last

So,how appropriate that my last post in a long while was ushering the new age of anarchy online in my life. Now that it's final

Anarchy Online Revival

Anarchy Online is again free until the new year! I'm Brethlor, a humble level 3 Solitus Militiaman who has yet to sign with a side.

I beta-tested this in junior year of high school and think lobbied hard for broadband because of it. www.ao-basher.com was my favorite fan-site until it collapsed.

11th hour post

So, with only 10 minutes before 12:00, I need to type something up as my daily post. How about this: I'm about to begin writing my candidate statement for President of the RUTTC. The funny thing is that I never got elected for the previous two years I was "in office," as the first year I helped start the club and the next we only had a handful of people attend elections, much less run. I had to convince all the members of our current executive board to take their positions. Even though this year, I doubt there's anyone running against me (I kinda hoped there would be), it'll be nice to finally be elected. The current top player of our team felt it was too early for him to take the responsibility, only being a freshman, but I think we'd make a good team with him as a Vice-President.

My main reservation is that so much is expected of a president. To be able to [help members improve](Added 4/17/05) lead in tough times, to motivate people to do the work that's necessary for the success of the club, and raise spirits in the face of tough competition. The thing I'll try hardest to do in my senior year is to try to get more people involved, because instead of being able to delegate many tasks, I mostly end up doing stuff that I may not be the best at doing. I did get tons of help this year ,though, and for that I'm grateful.

Wish me luck.

US Team Places 17th in ACM World Programming Competition

I've toned down the more disappointed (or derogatory) headlines:

The San Francisco Chronicle: "American universities fall way behind in programming; Weakest result for U.S. in 29-year history of international technology competition"

The Inquirer: "American universities produce pants programmers"

The nerve for the British to call us pants programmers. Their excuse?

We should point out that the UK didn't make the top 12 either, but we never expect to, it is part of being British.

Let me just say that I greatly admire the team from Rutgers who competed at the Worlds. They consisted of Bin Tian (Coach), Christopher Ross, Jun Dai, and Robert Renaud. Why did we get beat by Canada? I think it's because we didn't take it seriously enough.

I barely heard anything around campus about them competing on behalf of the STATE, the COUNTRY, and heck the CONTINENT among the best schools in the world. What did the winning team do before winning? Their city/university/country decided to freaking host the World Finals.

Anyhow, congratulations to the team from the University of Illinois for solving the most problems (PDF) among US teams and of course Shanghai Jiaotong University for winning. See the full standings.

SOURCE: The Inquirer

Doubly bad news

Well, the OS Design project is over (on with the next one!), but AAPL is down even before they announced their earnings due to some bad economic data about retail sales for March. Even though profits ended up being, 5 times more than last year, I guess that was expected. The biggest reason for the drop, according to Reuters is that they didn't raise their expectations for nextcurrent quarter. It'll probably drop even more when everyone else hears this news tomorrow, but I'm optimistic.

In other news of the same flavor, those big ionic breeze air purifiers that we got a couple of months ago can be quite bad for all the ozone they generate. And it seems they don't move as much air as everyone else. But, hey they're the quietest and easiest to clean (read, if we could return them we would).

I officially give up

I don't actually, but I admit that there is little hope for me as far as continuing on my current path of doing things. I've been throwing around the idea of designing and implementing a "scheduling policy" for my life, but throwing around isn't what I do. I threw the idea and kinda never caught it. What is my current path? Delaying the things I think are most challenging/important and doing those least so first. It's ugly, I know. Oh, wait... I'm not the only one in the world who procrastinates?

Way to go for my first daily post, eh?

Here's a committment

Because I suggested that Umar could try to blog about stuff that happened in his own life, I figured at least I should try to do the same instead of making this just a bi-weekly ordeal (j/k). Let's try this: I'll try to post once a day to make my sub-header ("a hit a day...") hold some clout. If you never read my longer posts, they won't be complete summaries of the day's events, but rather just short updates that will be bearable.

Today's post is forthcoming. Three cheers to not making promises you can't keep.

A belated post on the success of the iPod

Today, I observed that the color of the tag that you're assigned at the computer lab not only gives you the number of the assigned computer, but that the color of it denotes the area in the lab where it's located. I made a similar common sense observation when I saw someone holding an iPod shuffle today. The reason Apple gets away with selling such simplicity in all its products is not that they make the best computer, but that they show people why need computers.

The reason the iPod sells so well against its competitors is that the iPod makes you want to listen to music and get in that zone that those silhouettes are in during iPod commercials. Not just in your car, or in your room when it happens to be on, but all the time. I'm guessing that the majority of iPod owners listen to music a whole lot more than before they owned an iPod (supported by a web anecdote). It would be especially interesting if people didn't really listen a whole lot to music before they bought into Apple's marketing and got an iPod.

It seems so obvious, because we know that in order to sell a crazy new product, you don't convince people why it's better than your competitor's product and need to do more than add a bunch of cool features like FM radios and stopwatches (something Apple's done little of, see iPod shuffle). You need to convince people that they have an unmet need that iPod can fill. Now, the conclusion is that although anyone who actually wanted to have tons of music at their fingertips before Apple let them know they did, already had ways to listen to their music. These people care about what device has the best battery life or the best sound quality. They buy the Sony MD players or more affordable Creative Zens. They, however, aren't most people.

Yes, another post on Apple by a shareholder.

An original recursive acronym

Here's some competition for Splenda ©:

Who needs Splenda when you've got:

        SINS: Sins Is Not Sugar.

        Got Sins?

PyMusique just misunderstood?

So you've heard of PyMusique? The software that lets you buy music from the iTunes Music Store but in an unprotected form (without FairPlay digital rights management)? Well, this came as a suprise to me since I didn't properly investigate, but apparently the software was originally developed to enable Linux users to download (and pay for) songs from the iTMS.

So you CAN download songs from the iTMS on Linux! I'd settle for listening to songs I bought, but this is great. While the Forbes article says that losing the copy protection was an "unintended consequence," so I'm assuming this is because if the software does apply the copy protection, Linux users wouldn't be able to play the music. Apple refuses to let anyone license the technology for media players, especially to Real and Microsoft.

SOURCE: Forbes.com via Yahoo Finance

Anandtech explains the Cell processor

Anand takes you through the inner workingsdesign of the Cell processor in 13 pages.

SOURCE: Anandtech

Yahoo's new "social networking" service

Yahoo is about to leverage many of its most popular services and roll out a "blogging" service that seems to me like it's going to blow MSN Spaces out of the water. They're focusing on how easy it is to incorporate your photos, news, videos, playlists, and a whole bunch of other really cool things people would love to share into a new way to blog. The social networking aspect comes in when you have easy access to finding other people through their Yahoo 360 pages.

A tradeoff I see is that everything is very much a Yahoo! branded experience and less of a this is me experience. Still, it looks fantastic and is worth checking out.

UPDATE 3/17/05: I should've included this link to the beta sign-up.

UPDATE 4/9/05: Contact me for an invitation if you're interested in seeing what it's about.

UPDATE 3/26/05: And screenshots...

SOURCE: John Battelle's Searchblog

Wait, there's more!

Someone who works at Google remade the Google home page to be a model of the OS X dock calling it Google X, even paying homage to the OS at the bottom of the page. It was taken down before I got to try it, but there's a picture available. It's an interesting solution to Google's problem of having too many services but not enough space on it's ever growing home page menu.

In other Apple news, people all over are saying that we were wrong to blame the carriers on the delay of the iTunes phone (we thought they didn't want to be cut out of this new money-making deal) and that the true culprit is Apple. Their reason is that it's not their style to announce new devices before they're ready to be launched. I have a feeling is that they want to control their stock price with this down the line. The worry is that giving out too many employee options to get stocks for free or at a discount is bad.

So I can never be done talking about the iTunes phone, and I've resolved to get one. That or a phone that tells me when I have email like an MS Smartphone or a Mobile Messenger/Blackberry/Pocket PC Phone type device. A while back, I stopped wondering when the Blackberry patent infringement suit would be resolved. First they're guilty and an injunction is ordered to stop them from selling their patent-violating wares. Then, that order is stayed. The fact that so many powerful and important people like lawyers and politicians use blackberries always helps. I'm not sure what happened next, but now they've finally settled, and RIM is paying NTP a one time (?) licensing fee.

This is kinda important for them as companies had been wary of them. Just after the announcement of the settlement, mobile device manufacturer HTC announces that it will license RIM's Blackberry technology in its upcoming devices. They already make a ton of Windows Mobile Smartphones, the Palm One Treos, almost all the iPaqs (including the up and coming HP Mobile Messenger which runs RIM-competitor technology likely the for aforementioned reason), and a whole bunch of other devices under other brands.

SOURCE: Lotsa places

Quote of the day

What a gem from Stephen Shanklan of News.com:

It's not too much of a stretch to say GCC is as central an enabler to the free and open-source programming movements as a free press is to democracy.

SOURCE: News.com via Slashdot.org

And you thought using Firefox was safe

Like a question you'd see on the LSAT

People over at Vitalsecurity have found a flaw in Java that would allow an applet to launch Internet Exporer from any browser and exploit an IE flaw to do potentially bad stuff to your computer. Ironically, the best way to prevent against falling victim to this specific flaw (next to being careful abot what applets you give permission to run) is using Internet Explorer. Microsoft has patched this flaw but obviously hasn't fixed it thoroughly enough.

I wonder how they're going to fix this. It's not so easy to update Java and get users to apply a patch on a large scale. It hardly seems right to expect browser developers to do something where you stop Java from launching IE. This seems a bit like an LSAT question my sister told me about where you have to assign liability, I'd say it's still MS's fault and they need to really fix their browser software. This begs the following question: Is it safe to even have IE on your computer? And that question begs another. Why are you still using Windows? Ok, I guess I'm taking this too far :)

SOURCE: BetaNews

Don't buy those Mac minis yet...

First off, Apple is rumored to have plans to double the standard amount of RAM included in it's computers from 256 MB to 512 MB. This is going to be timed with the release of OS X Tiger (10.4) which is slated to be announced April 1 and be available in stores April 15.

Although Apple says it currently has no plans to license OS X to other manufacturers, it's still got strong products in it's own portfolios. The best case scenario would be OS X Tiger being offered on the Mac mini with 512 MB RAM.

On the music front, although the iTunes phone launch was delayed due to service-provider issues, the real Apple-designed iTunes phone isn't due until Christmas.

The last thing of interest I found was that Apple is rumored to have plans to buy TIVO, which has an ailing stock price and would be cheap considering Apple's cash on hand. Convention says that the buyer in such aquisitions suffers a price drop while the aquiree's price rises, but many doubt whether such is deal is realistic considering the difficulties in merging the brands similar to the arguments used to debunk rumors of IBM buying Apple. Obviously, I'm making a case to buy Apple stock.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I own shares of AAPL and have an interest in the success of Apple's stock price. Of note is a recent drop in price after the 2 for 1 split.

The glory...

Jehangir, the treasurer of the RUTTC and my good friend, wrote up an excellent account of our regional tournament at which we qualified for nationals.

Read it!

Gmail on the Pocket PC... this time for real.

Apparently, Google has been testing plain-html access to Gmail. This'll be exciting.

By the way, ANY ONE READING THIS at Rutgers should come to the College Avenue Gym tonight, Tuesday, March 1st at 7 PM for a table tennis exhibition like you've never seen.

UPDATE 12:22 AM EST 3/2/05: Once you're logged in, try this link. It seems like it will either work or not work, depending on whether your account is activated. I've yet to try accessing Gmail from my pocket pc.

SOURCE: PocketPCThoughts

So much for being me being a credible source...

Earlier this week, I sent in a tip to Engadget regarding Motorola's iTunes phone after reading a Reuters article mentioning that the E1060 was going to be the first phone to include iTunes software. Well, it turns out that they were just using that particular phone in demoing the software. I'm not even sure there will be such a thing as the iTunes phone.

Why am I posting about this? Because the day I sent in the tip, I got over 300 clicks in from this Engadget post. So, because I'm implicated in all this misunderstanding, I felt that I should clarify that iTunes is still software and will be soon installed on as many phones as Motorola can put it on. Even if Motorola demonstrated it on a phone that doesn't look at all like what the iTunes phone should look like, it doesn't make it the iTunes phone. My fault for not being more discerning when sending in tips.

SOURCE: Engadget.com

UPDATE 9:24 PM EST: Incidentally, this all happened already at CES where reporters confused the E398 as being the elusive iTunes phone. I even blogged about it. I really don't learn.

Apple announces 2 for 1 stock split

That's the news. It's going to happen on the 18th 28th (updated 10:01 AM). I love this.

SOURCE: Yahoo Finance

Chinese Music comes to iTunes!

The moment we've all been waiting for... even if it seems the albums are all from years ago. I bet Napster doesn't have Chinese music (please inform me if otherwise, I'm prone to being wrong). The beauty of the internet is that we can all be more connected and the only limits are legal (distribution rights). I hope we get music in the iTunes Music Store from even more countries soon. Despite the iTMS being opened in a variety of European countries, I think you were still limited to buying songs in the country in which you have currency.

Click here to be taken to iTunes World. Then click on Chinese New Year. I couldn't get a more direct link for some reason."

Sample link

SOURCE: The Unofficial Apple Weblog

Bloglines... SOLD to Ask Jeeves

I always wondered how web-based feed aggregating service Bloglines made any revenue. I mean any. Although there is an Advertise Here link, I couldn't find any ads. There didn't seem like there was a way to for the site to make money. Other 'free' services that boggled my mind was Google SMS and also Blogger. I figured the latter two our, though. Google SMS solidifies Google's dominance in the search market. Google's POP access to Gmail does the same thing. They have great products and give you some free accessories to the core service.

Bloglines was started by the former CEO of the company ONElist that eventually was bought out by Yahoo! and became YahooGroups. Well, it seems as if that this could be his business model. Build an unbeatable product, and even if you can't find a way to make money from it, another site will use it to build the value of their overall service. I was thinking that after all these years, I'd actually be using Ask Jeeves again. Although it operates several sites independently including myway.com (again, a site with no banners, no pop-ups), iwon.com, and excite.com, among others, Bloglines is actually going to be fit into the Ask Jeeves' search portal, according to Napsterization.

Interestingly, the blogger who broke this story Saturday morning says this news won't be announced until Monday (now Tuesday). ASKJ closed at around 25.39 (down 1.55) on Friday due to mixed reviews of their Q4 report. They're growing fast but just not as fast as Google and this is why in the previously linked article, an analyst says it's undervalued. I'll close how she closed:

Also, I'm sure Jeeves is asking himself how I know this. I learned it from a couple of folks. Once that happened, it seemed reasonable to blog it.

SOURCE: Napsterization via The RSS Weblog

Napster To Go

As per today's news, Apple should be afraid:

Napster's promotion includes a Super Bowl television spot urging fans to compare the costs of spending $10,000 to buy and transfer 10,000 songs from Apple's iTunes store to an iPod, with the $15-per-month fee to carry songs from a catalog of over a million tracks on Napster-compatible players.

Especially with the oncoming deluge of slick devices like the Creative Zen Micro supporting Napster To Go, how long can the craze last? Do people get iPods for the music (something that any player can provide) or for the branded experience?

Afraid, that is, if not for the iPod (I know this isn't exactly new analysis). Think about this: Apple has sold and given away more than 250 millions songs on iTunes. Despite all the fuss over online music, 250 million songs at most brings in 250 million in revenue, and this is a stretch, as Apple is always giving away free songs. Based on the 10 million iPods sold, 250 million looks more like 25 songs per iPod. Of all the 55 songs I've downloaded from iTunes, about half of them were free. Considering that the typical iPod holds 5,000 songs, you'd understand that it's not the necessarily the legally downloaded music people care about when they buy into the iPod culture.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I've replaced my GTC stop loss order to activate at 65 with a one day order to activate at 75. I hope it doesn't go through.

READ: Reuters

Goodbye, Genetics?

I don't know if I can really handle my schedule this semester and I might have to drop Genetics. You know... like mentally. I've been trying to attend it even though I don't have permission to register for it from the University. I keep meaning to try going in during drop-in hours but something always comes up. In this case, it was sleep and a study group. Oh, and ironically, having to go to an earlier Genetics recitation that takes place during the drop-in hours.

Maybe this post is a result of how badly I did on the hw due today I did last night. Eh... sorry for the lack of real updates. This just seems like an easy thing to post about. OH, BTW, I've hit 10% on my Gmail account. So many things I'm behind in, so many... Maybe it's my unwillingness to make tough choices.

Another potential post I could've made is my changed outlook on my personality style, having gone from an ISTJ to an ISFP. Not as exciting a type, but that's the way it is. Then, again, I haven't properly reflected on much of this these days. Oh, and I want to talk about the Iraqi elections, too.

Snails, penguins, and lip plugs

Now that the "Discount Bonsai Kittens" Google Ad is not longer on my blog anymore, I'm going to have to post about that weekend I referred to in my last post, before I forget. I probably already forgot a lot. So, here it is. (Remember, disruptive commas should be omitted.)

Ok. How did my weekend start? [a minute later] Oh, right. Leading up to the weekend before moving back (1/12 - 1/16), my sister paid for a new 120 GB Western Digital Caviar hard drive that we love so much (2 in my computer, 1 in my dad's computer and 1 in my brother's). I partitioned it (as inspired by Rad's partitioning strategies page) into six partitions: 16 gigs for Windows, 1 gig for Linux swap, 8 gigs for Linux, a 15 gig FAT32 partition for common access, (originally for archiving pictures/photos), a 25 gig unformatted partition (for games?), and a 46 gig NTFS partition for just windows stuff, perhaps video encoding?... in other words, I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it. Needless to say, I don't need this much space.

Let's skip the part where I first tried having Linux as my first partition, install windows on the third, and have it not be ever recognized as having completed an installation. I reformatted everything to make Windows first, crossing my fingers that there was enough space for the Linux to redo the bootloader.

After windows was installed, patched, and activated (again), I'm assuming this is Thursday night, I find instructions (jugdo?) to install the most recent version of Debian Linux. All I remember is staying up late finding download sources for the 4 GB DVD image and then the next couple days was a blur going into Friday and Saturday. After many late nights in my brother's room (that's where I set up my computer because my dad's computer was set up in mine) and going through an entire bag of Cajun Style Mo' Munchies soybean snacks and three Linux distros, plus lots of learning along the way), I successfully have MEPIS Linux running still with no sound, but I wasn't complaining.

In between, I met a friend from Rutgers while volunteered at a benefit to raise money from the NJ Asian Community for the Red Cross's Southeast Asian disaster relief effort for a little bit. The best part, however, was going into Manhattan on Saturday with my mom and my sister, going to the Guggenheim to see an exhibit about the Aztecs (btw, lip-plugs are a form of body piercing below the lower lip), and then eating good and very cheesy french onion soup and trying escargot (courtesy of hers truly) at a french bistro, La Bonne Soupe. The wait wasn't too bad and they even had wireless internet so we could look up information about the rabies virus during dinner. The escargot was definitely an experience, but I thought it was a bit too mushy and soft to take the time to enjoy. I think I just tried chewing away until I could swallow.

The next day, we went to Chinatown and I played some table tennis before pretending to pack to go back to school. See here for how little I've learned in moving in on MLK day. It's doesn't even count as deja vu. less

more

SOURCES:

Bonsai Kittens: NOT available since 2001

I had originally meant to post a summary of my last weekend at home, but I just received a chain letter today that describes an evil "Japanese" practice consumed by Chinese, Indonesians, and, oddly, New Zealanders. They speak of boxing kittens in glass boxes to mold their skeletons to the shapes of the glass containers as souvenirs or decorative pieces. The site is called Bonsai Kittens and makes a despicable analogy of this absurdly cruel and time-consuming process of raising a contorted cat in a bottle for pure pleasure with the Japanese hobby of shaping miniature plants through painstaking care and attention. Because I had recently read of there being a new trend where Japanese sell bonsai TREEs in a bottle keychain until they are big enough to be transplanted, I took the time to investigate this sales venture.

I was disappointed with the time spent by the owner of the website (a presumed racist who was attending MIT) to demonize Asians. I was not convinced by the quantity of unconvincing text or pictures, but noticed that the quality of the hoax was diminished greatly by the author's overzealous attempts to make his site shocking and sensational.

I was most disturbed by the amount of people who had falled for the hoax in its most recent incarnation (although the site has remained fairly equally unconvincing since 2001) and the durability these negative stereotypes people sustain that's reflected in believing an absurd and impossible practice merely because it's purportedly undertaken and appreciated by wildly immoral "orientals".

Anyone with the slightest suspicion or belief in a common sense of human dignity that even Asians share would be satisfied by a quick Google search returns many results debunking the hoax, including an appeal by The Humane Society of the United States to deprive the creators of the site their desired negative attention.

A perhaps more telling version of the site (found here)can be found here where it seeks not to sell the kittens but to obtain names and emails of people who fell for the hoax and wanted to know more.

A particularly absurd quote:

lobstah@amway.com Months ago, you have masterfully shaped my kitten into a trapezoid; however, now, the 45-degree angle on the tail side is weakining, making her more of a rhombus than anything. Although, I could reinforce the front side with the angular clamps you sell, I'm afraid she might turn out to be a parallelogram. Any tips?
We would be happy to surgically restore the crisp angles to your cherished pet. In fact, you may have forgotten that we provide a lifetime warranty on the shape of your Bonsai Kitten. Please, pack the Kitten into the shipping container that we will send to you via special express, and we will contact you shortly with a time estimate for the repairs.

In addressing the "founder",

Dear Dr. Wong Chang,

First of all, let me express my most sincere appreciation and congratulations for your bonsaikitten.com site. You truly managed to express a poetic balance of ancient tradition, modern art, life and science. I was deeply touched by it.

Others:

As this kitten will be a display model, we have chosen to divert to a separate waste tube via Super Glue anus sealing as usual.

Master Liu-Chen's writings repeatedly warn that deep tissue and skeletal damage due to careless cramming is sufficient to disqualify the resulting Bonsai Kitten from the highest levels of the art, and may also result in sub-optimal temperament as the kitten ages.

And, if you're interested, the chainletter followed by about 450 names. Show it.

This is so terrible. A site that we were able to shut last year has returned. We have to try to shut it down again! (www.bonsaikitten.com) A Japanese man in New York breeds and sells kittens that are called BONSAI CATS. That would sound cute, if it weren't kittens that were put in to little bottles after being given a muscle relaxant and then locked up for The rest of their lives! The cats are fed through a straw and have a small tube for their Faces.The skeleton of the cat will take on the form of the bottle as the kitten grows. The cats never get the opportunity to move. They are used as original and exclusive souvenirs. These are the latest trends in New York, China, Indonesia and New Zealand. If you think you can handle it, view www.bonsaikitten.com (PLEASE LOOK) and have a look at the methods being used to put these little kittens into bottles.

This petition needs 500 names, so please put yours on it! Copy the text into a new email and put your name on the bottom,then send it to everyone you know!

The names and locations of the signatories were omitted for their privacy.

SOURCES: thefacebook, The Humane Society of the United States

GMail vulnerability exposed :/ (AND FIXED)

UPDATE 2:18 EST 1/13/05: No, I can't promise that this is the last update. No, I don't have a life. Just got Google's reply (sent 12:37 AM) to my bug report concerning the fix. I can also read the test message I sent to myself (of which I got over 15 copies) without the "Oops..." message getting in my way. I thought I would continue getting them forever. I think Google's initial response was as I described below, blocking access to the emails until they could fix the problem for all users, but not wanting users to lose the mail, so they kept messages in the queue until they fixed the problem for good? Anyway, when you look at the message header as they show over at HBX, you still get to see the missing final >, but there's nothing else wrong with the email. I will report back about whether or not I keep getting those messages. [UPDATE 2:22 EST 1/13/05: I still do, but at least now I can make a filter for them :)]

UPDATE 10:00 PM EST 1/12/05: About 2.5 hours before I even read about the vulnerability, CNET said it had already been fixed. I feel stupid.

Re-live the insanity.

UPDATE 8:10 PM EST 1/12/05:Google implemented a temporary block of emails exploiting the vulnerability! I tested the exploit to make sure it wasn't a hoax. When I got the mail, GMail gave me the "Oops, the system was unable to perform your operation..." message. My guess is that this is a stop-gap way to stop the leaks of personal information. It looks like they've also stopped POP delivery of those messages.

Gmail Bug Exposes E-mails to Hackers

UNIX developers HBX Networks have stumbled upon a bug within Google's Gmail that allows access to other users' personal e-mails. By altering the "From" address field of an e-mail sent to the service, hackers could potentially find out a user's personal information, including passwords.

A tiny discrepancy, a missing character, causes GMail to cough up all kinds of personal information. I guess the only way to keep yourself TOTALLY safe is to not use GMail, but I'll take my chances. Didn't want to scare people away from GMail, but help get it fixed. The group that found the flaw suggests we express our concern to google over the problem and "demand" that they fix it.

Click here for the link to the the GMail bug report form.

UPDATE 7:17 PM EST: On second thought, I'm confident that Google will fix this very soon.

SOURCE: BetaNews.com

Things I'm really good at

Here's a sample:

1. Thinking of really original blog titles (and Chess thinks he's got a non-unique title).
2. Turning a blog named "Bits and pieces..." into a blog about Apple. (BTW, anyone catch Apple's use of the ffl ligature in their Apple shuffle ads?)
3. Starting things.
4. Forgetting things.

Things I'm not good at (the short list):

1. Coming up with really original blog titles. (Any ideas?)
2. Being creative.
3. Finishing things.
4. Anything that can be blamed on number four othe previous list.

SOURCE: Google, Changethis, Apple

Some keynote videos + AAPL news

UPDATE 5:26 PM EST: The webcast is up.
UPDATE 12:04 EST 1/12/0405: Al Gore was at Macworld.
UPDATE 5:39 PM EST 1/12/05: AAPL up almost 11% in after hours trading. Reason? Apple announced that its profits exceeded expectations by almost 50%. So much for being fairly valued. (DISCLAIMER: I'm a shareholder and have a skewed perception of Apple stuff.)

Since Apple's not posting its webcast until later today, here's some clips of the Mac mini and the iPod shuffle. Watching Steve Jobs do the keynote pushed me over the edge for the iPod shuffle. It's about half as thick as I imagined and so light (4 quarters?!). Now, if only I didn't just get a 1 GB USB drive or have a Pocket PC. Now's the moment of truth for people who don't really use all that space on their non-mini/shuffle iPod.

The bad news: AAPL drops $4.40 during the trading day. Could be because S&P says AAPL is "fairly valued" or just people cashing out while they could for other reasons I don't quite understand. Well, Apple's next earnings announcement is due tomorrow...

SOURCE: Yahoo Finance via Google.

A Mac and iPod in every home...

It's called the Mac mini!!!

...
$499 with 1.25 G4, 256, 40 gig, Combo
prices for mac mini: $499 and $599
http://webpages.charter.../mattman7/mini.jpg
available Jan 22
most important new mac 'ever'
another at 1.4 Ghz
1.25 Ghz G4
coming 1st half of 05
half as high as an iPod Mini, surface of a little dish
comes with Panther & iLife 05
analog, digital video out
pizza box style
quiet, fw, usb2, video out, ethernet - very very tiny
very tiny
Mac Mini
Macs
Next - talking about headless stripped down mac
...

Don't be fooled by the picture, it's only 2 inches tall:



UPDATE 2:20 EST: And the iPod shuffle!

...
http://www.apple.com/macmini/
...
http://www.apple.com/ipodshuffle/
...
dock available
shipping today
2 models - 512 MB - 120 songs - $99
1 GB 240 songs - $149
250 MB charge in the car
manual filling or automated
integration between the device and the jukebox
autoplay
shuffle or playlist
12 hours on battery
cap covering inputs - USB
simple to use controls
weights under 1 ounce
ipod shuffle - built around shuffle playback - its TINY.
something happened in the ipod market - became most popular way to listen - shuffle
want to make something really great
forget batteries - no need to make music hard to find on player
next?
...

Somehow I'm not too impressed by the iPod shuffle, but the built-in battery and lanyard strap are redeeming...

SOURCE: MacRumors live coverage of Macworld keynote.

UPDATE 2:06 EST 1/12/05: fixed IE css box trouble

UPDATE 20:00 EST 1/9/23: images

Not the iTunes phone

So, that phone Motorola was showing off at CES isn't the so called iPhone but a first of several upcoming Motorola phones loaded with a mobile version of iTunes.

But a Motorola representative clarified on Friday that the phone shown during the keynote was not the actual iTunes phone that is slated for release this year. Instead, it was a Motorola E398 equipped with the iTunes functionality for the demonstration.

Show more

This looks like another example of Apple telling its users, "If it's not on our software or our hardware, it's not worth playing." Apple has consistently refused to license it's FairPlay DRM to makers of both software and hardware players. Even though Motorola devices will be able to play Apple's protected AAC (*.m4p) format, Apple isn't even really licensing the FairPlay technology so much as helping to develop another version of iTunes. Consequently, as more people (namely iPod-less people) will be able to listen to their legally purchased music away from their computers, it's still in a very restricted way.

New Windows Mobile Smartphones, Pocket PCs, Pocket PC phones, and Portable Media Centers will soon be able to play and even download media protected by Microsoft's freely licensable DRM technology supported by, well, everyone else. While Apple maintains its strangle hold on the MP3/Digital Audio player market, how much longer will their 'only on iTunes' philosophy hold as the number of devices and ways to listen to your music expands?

Unfortunately for Microsoft, it would seem market share and brand loyalty for Apple is surging and not declining. Having multiple players and music stores all supporting its software is great and all, but doesn't match Apple's unified approach. In light of the recent court cases (a, b) involving Apple, isn't this similar to what Microsoft did with Windows, IE and Media Player?

SOURCE: Engadget

Is this Yoogle or Gahoo?

When did yahoo's search page start looking like this?



At first I couldn't believe my eyes and thought,"Yahoo couldn't have rebranded Google's search service!" I guess Google wasn't necessarily the only one to have the clean simple interface Google's had since 1998. It's not just that it's simple and minimalist. IceRocket and Devilfinder have similar layouts but they just don't match Google's in every way to the page style to the same three links in the same order to the right of the input field to the vertical pipes separating the search types. Heck, putting ^NEW next to the new stuff is just so familiar from Google's use of it.

SOURCE: Can't I just say I found it?

You know you're an Operator when...

I can't say I've been working too long at NBCS Operations, because I've only been there for one semester. But, I was just typing at home typing when I suddenly got the urge to check the network monitoring tools I'm responsible for at work. Now, that's a milestone.

Well, I guess it couldn't hurt to log in from home... just kidding.

Engadget Awards results comparison

The results have been announced. The winners actually get real weighty awards! I've bolded in black the ones I agreed with as per my previous post. I admit that I didn't thoroughly research the choices, but I'm italicizing the ones where I could be having a change of heart. Of the four device categories where the editors and readers agree, I only agreed with one—the PSP.

Click to show the comparisonresults. Or see for yourself.

Gadget of the Year
Readers’ Choice: Apple iPod (4G)
Engadget Pick: Archos Gmini 400

Disappointment of the Year
Readers’ Choice: Sony Network Walkman NW-HD1
Engadget Pick: Treo 650

Merger of the Year
Readers’ Choice: Cingular/AT&T
Engadget Pick: Sprint/Nextel

Worst Gadget of the Year
Readers’ Choice: Sony Network Walkman NW-HD1
Engadget Pick: Sony Network Walkman NW-HD1

Comeback of the Year
Readers’ Choice: Netscape (as Mozilla)
Engadget Pick: Nintendo

Most Anticipated Gadget of 2005
Readers’ Choice: Apple iPhone
Engadget Pick: Apple iPhone

Cellphone of the Year
Readers’ Choice: Motorola RAZR V3
Engadget Pick: None of the Above

Desktop of the Year
Readers’ Choice: Apple iMac G5
Engadget Pick: Sony Vaio Type X

Digital Camera of the Year
Readers’ Choice: Canon EOS 20D
Engadget Pick: Casio Exilim EX-S100

Display of the Year
Readers’ Choice: Apple Cinema Display
Engadget Pick: LG Flatron 2320A

Game Console of the Year
Readers’ Choice: Sony PlayStation Portable
Engadget Pick: Sony PlayStation Portable

GPS Device or Application of the Year
Readers’ Choice: Garmin StreetPilot 2620
Engadget Pick: TomTom GO

Handheld of the Year
Readers’ Choice: Dell Axim X50v
Engadget Pick: Sharp Zaurus SL-C3000

Home Electronics Device of the Year
Readers’ Choice: Humax TiVo DRT800
Engadget Pick: Toshiba 37LZ150

Laptop of the Year
Readers’ Choice: Apple PowerBook G4
Engadget Pick: ASUS W1000N

Media PC of the Year
Readers’ Choice: Sony Vaio Type R
Engadget Pick: HUSH ATX

Peripheral Device of the Year
Readers’ Choice:
Logitech MX1000
Engadget Pick: Logitech MX1000

Portable Audio Player of the Year
Readers’ Choice: Apple iPod (4G)
Engadget Pick: Rio Carbon

Portable Video Player of the Year
Readers’ Choice: Creative Zen Portable Media Center
Engadget Pick: Archos Gmini 400

Robot of the Year
Readers’ Choice: Honda Asimo
Engadget Pick: Roomba Discovery

Tablet PC of the Year
Readers’ Choice: Fujitsu T4010
Engadget Pick: NEC VersaPro

Wireless Technology of the Year
Readers’ Choice: Apple AirPort Express
Engadget Pick: EV-DO

Wearable of the Year
Readers’ Choice: Jabra BT800
Engadget Pick: Voltaic Solar Backpack

SOURCE: Engadget

Matching glasses and computer case

I went into Chinatown and picked up my new glasses. They are plastic-rimmed and Gucci. I didn't ask for them to be Gucci, but when the lady behind the counter saw that it was my mom paying, or maybe because she knew we didn't have any particular plastic-rimmed glasses in mind, all she brought out were the Guccis, Calvin Kleins, and Versaces... I guess they're over-priced, but since my prescription has not increased, hopefully, they'll last forever. At least the eye glass people tuned up my old pair of glasses while I was there.

Which reminds me, Chinatown does look more busy (as in the amount of tourists) so that new welcome booth and the overall revival effort has been working. Good weather helps, too. So my glasses helped the Chinatown/Manhattan economy, but that act of consumerism, doesn't make me feel that much better. And they say that keeping diaries make your feel worse. I'm not sure if I believe that... plus, this is a blog that once in a while garners feedback and is public. Maybe, I'm just not posting this in the right blog.

As my glasses are black, they now match my eyebrows and incidentally, my new black Antec Sonata PC Case. The tagline is "Silence is beautiful". Now, the only think keeping me from near silent computing (running at under 80 degrees, BTW) is my loud 80 gig hard drive with my :ahem: windows partition on it. If you're wondering why I didn't replace it with the 120 gig that'd been sitting in my room since last year, it was installed into a system my brother built for my dad.

The installation was not entirely smooth, but it was a delightful experience with all the small innovative things I found. First the bad. For one thing, one of the pin-connectors for the front panel was the wrong size and I had to switch the position of one of the contacts. This probably contributed to the $30 dollar rebate during Thanksgiving when we got the case. Or, it could be unrelated and they could be waiting for me to tell them about the problem. Next, my front USB connectors didn't work. There may be an explanation for this (excluding the possibility of my ineptitude because they designed a one piece connector) but I won't go into it here. Also, I have yet to order a floppy drive.

I do miss my old case a little, but the led-accented front panel will remind me of ol' blue (just made that name up).

LINKS: My Case

Interview with the Apple Store retail employee (and what should have happened)

When I was leaving the Short Hills Mall today, I walked past an Apple store for the first time where I thought there should've been an A/X store. I couldn't help but ask the employee standing by the half closed steel curtain waiting for the last of the customers and employees to leave whether or not Apple was really going to release a budget iMac. As expected, he said he didn't know or he couldn't say, but that'd it'd all be clear come January 10th. But there was a particular way in which he answered that seemed, at least with my perception, to betray an incompletely confident withholding of information. I don't know. I then asked him whether he received any notification from the company. "If I did, I wouldn't be able to tell you," was his response.

What I should of asked was this string of questions: 1) Have you heard about Apple's plans for a budget iMac? to which he'd obviously answer yes. 2) Some innocent question like, did you hear that it's supposed to be super-slim like the X-Serve? To distract him before I ask the incriminating question. 3) Where'd you hear that from?

At this point, there are two possibilities leading to separate replies to the third question.

A) There is no budget iMac, which would lead him to answer something like, "Oh, from a website" or "From a friend".

OR

B) There is a budget iMac, leading him to give the same answer, but not before a brief hesitation to think of something other than the truth, which would have been a directly or indirectly (from a manager) official notification.

My thinking relies (damningly) on there having been no training or preparation by the employee for such questions. Or perhaps there really isn't a need to tell the employees as the product probably won't be stocked until later in the year.

Through the glass, I got a chance to look at an iMac G5 in person for the first time. It's pretty compact is all, as in "if you showed it to me last year and said this was the new iMac monitor, I'd look at you funny and believe you" compact. When we finally left, my mom said I should go work for them.

PS - In other news, it turns out that you can ride the Segway HT at Brookstone, but only if you make an appointment for a Tuesday or Wednesday evening and fill out some paperwork. I haven't been to the mall in a while and was only able to spend twenty minutes today before closing for New Year's Eve. Happy New Year.

SOURCE: An Apple Store (the big kind)

Maybe we'll have better luck in this poll

Engadget (voted best Tech blog in the 2004 Weblog Awards) has a poll to decide the winners of the 2004 Engadget Awards! Apparently, the nominees were chosen through a combination of reader input and maybe too healthy a dose of editorial preference. I agree with my brother when he says that the Sony Network Walkman won too many of the negative nominations and none of the positive ones, it's still fun to participate in.

On a side note, where's the instant run-off voting? We talk about election spoilers and seeing the big picture, but until we adopt instant run-off voting pervasively, there's a slim chance we'll use it when it matters most. I could boycott the vote, but I'm voting anyway. I hope this isn't an instance of, "Do it if it feels good."

I was suprised to not see the iPod mini nominated for anything, despite it's popularity. This one I attribute to the readership. Anyway, below are my choices. (NOTE: I did think of how I could get cool Google Ads from this post, but only after I thought about how cool it'd be to have some of my choices win and have this post to prove it)

Go cast your votes!

Click here to show/hide my choices. It took me a VERY long time to get this to work in IE so if there are still any of you out there... it was all for you. Also, let me know if you voted differently.

Gadget of the Year:  Apple iPod (4G)
Disappointment of the Year:  palmOne Tungsten T5
Merger of the Year:  Cingular/AT&T
Worst Gadget of the Year: OQO model 01
Comeback of the Year:  Netscape (as Mozilla)
Most Anticipated Gadget of 2005:Apple iPod flash
Cellphone of the Year:  Motorola RAZR V3
Desktop of the Year:  Apple iMac G5
Ditigal Camera of the Year: No choice
Display of the Year:  Apple Cinema Display
Game Console of the Year: Sony Playstation Portable
GPS Device or Application OTY: No choice
Handheld of the Year:  Sharp Zaurus SL-C3000
Home Electronics Device OTY: No choice
Laptop of the Year:  No choice
Media PC of the Year:  No choice
Peripheral Device of the Year: No choice
Portable Audio Player OTY: Apple iPod (4G)
Portable Video Player OTY: I forget
Robot of the Year:  Roomba Discovery
Tablet PC of the Year:  No choice
Wireless Technology OTY: Apple AirPort Express
Wearable of the Year:  Jabra BT800 (I think)

SOURCE: Engadget

UDPATE 10:08 PM EST 12/30/04: Sorry to disappoint everyone (especially myself), but there may be no relevant google ads for this post as the choices are hidden by default, and with them, the Google ad-fodder.
UPDATE 7:59 PM EST 1/9/23: Fix images.

Can't pass up iMac rumors

Anyone reading this may already know about rumors of the budget X-Serve-like iMac, but I just wanted to record something before it happened. First, ThinkSecret breaks the news that a sub-$500 iMac would be released. Then AppleInsider covers the same story but says the price is sub-$600. Then TUAW (The Unofficial Apple Weblog)'s Barb Dybwab says she paid $499 for an iPod last year. I can't help but wonder whether I'd buy a Mac that's that cheap, but the answer's probably no.

I have a feeling that people who buy the oh so good looking new iMac (at least from the descriptions of a super thin form-factor) will find that they'll have been better served just forgetting the iPod in the first place and buying a cheap 12" iBook (899.88 after rebate) and hooking a monitor to it. I just agree with Barb because people will wonder how they just spend 300-600 dollars on an iPod and then spend $500-$600 on a Mac. Of course, they could also think, 'WOW! The price on this iMac is insane!' seeing as they'd rationalize buying the iPod in the first place.

In some ways, it just doesn't make sense from the "but the monitor is ugly" point of view, as this iMac wouldn't have a monitor. But then again, my monitor doesn't match with my case. It shouldn't be a media center device. Anyway,

Um... nevertheless, I'll be really excited about Apple's 2005 offerings: the 5 gig iPod mini, the iTunes Apple mobile phone, OS X Tiger, the budget iMac, the flash iPod(?), and of course the Garage Band hardware component.

SOURCE: MacRumors via TUAW

Pizza and backups

I'm quite often inspired to post about what's going on in my life. Now seems to be a good time. To be honest, I feel bad posting because it feels like I'm procrastinating from continuing my adventures in JavaScript. But, hey, when else am I ever going to post if not procrastinating?

Anyhow, today I went to work at Operations around 13:30 EST. I scheduled 13 hours worth in a single work day, which isn't really bad, because I have an hour lunch during the first 8 and the rest were 5 hours later (200-700). Since I usually work at this time, I knew that I needed to sleep in between so I would stay awake and having gotten around one and a half to two hours of sleep in between, I'm fully awake and only occasionally yawn.

Part of the reason I only used two of the possible three hours for sleep was the hunger pang and the long wait for our pizza to arrive but it was worth it. To continue on the correct line of thought, since I usually work on weekends, I don't have to help with the changing the backup tapes (each 160 gb). So, Maka, my full-time colleague walked me through the process. Basically, it involves removing the tapes and putting them back in their respective cases and then refilling the tape cartridges with the new tapes.

Now, I'm going to go back to the JavaScript. I'm kinda itchy and I hope it wasn't from the bed bugs in the sofa I slept on.

SOURCE: ME

This changes everything

Pardon to the hyperbolic title, but I've recently added a google ad block under my blogroll. I feel like I should make some declarative remarks. I started out trying to explain why I added it, but to be honest, the two best reasons were that it was cool, and I can get a few dollars here and there. Even though I will be incentivized to "sex up" the blog to contain more references to specific items or ideas that people will try to buy ads for, I will try not to do so excessively (read, I will try not to do it unconsciously or abusively).

If you aren't aware of the Google Adsense program, it is really one of the best. Instead of using cookies to track you all over the web, Gmail looks at the content of a website and serves relevant ads. If there are no relevant ads, Google makes public service announcements for non-profits. [UPDATE: or has random ebay ads?!]

I've had people ask me whether I'm paid to talk to people about pocket pc's, and note that I blog too much about Apple stuff. Is my enthusiasm linked to financial gain? Whenever I do speak too excitedly about a product, I've usually made a reference or added a disclaimer stating that I have a material interest in the success of the product I'm posting about. Here are some examples: A and B. There are all kinds of implications of having a financial gain (however small) from a website, but know that I'll be thinking about all this as my blogging develops.

SOURCE: Google Ads

Hope is on the way...

So... Sony wants to join the party and challenge the iPod's dominance in the hard drive MP3 player sector? Here an indication of how Apple thrives in Sony's home market: Apple Ginza Store Opening Video.

Also, what's new here is not the player (which is slated for release in Europe) but the fact that it plays MP3s and not just Sony's proprietary file format. Don't get me wrong, I felt a sinking feeling when I first saw Sony's new Walkman, which makes Apple's iPod look too simple and toy-like. However, we're dealing with normal people.

Hope remains. If you thought the iPod was expensive (unless you go to Duke), the Network Walkman will cost nearly 200 dollars more. Granted, it's got a cool metal case that's smaller and lighter than the iPod, has significantly better battery life and presumably higher quality engineering overall, be not afraid. Ok, if you are afraid, cash out like everyone else.

But, here's the good news: the iTunes music store has yet to be rolled out in Japan and just opened in Canada. Market analysts are saying that PC users who buy iPods are more likely to buy Apple computers (the iMac G5 got rave reviews). Apple has tremendous ground to gain in the PC market, having only 4% of it. Don't forget that the XBox II is going to be using a G5 PowerPC processor. Although that doesn't mean games are going to simultaneously developed for OS X and the Xbox, but think about the possibilities! Maybe Microsoft will have the Xbox running OS X. Or, Direct X will be ported to... I don't know...

DISCLAIMER: The author is an Apple stockholder and has a vested interest in the performance of AAPL.

SOURCES: Laszlo, Mac News, Engadget, and The Unofficial Apple Weblog

UPDATE 4:41 EST 12/9/04: Just like before the iPod mini was announced, I was thinking I would probably go for a sub $100 MP3 player, just because it's the right price. Check out MacMinute for analyst predictions of this and pictures of what could potentially be the product. Some logistical info here citing sources in Asia about the announcement during Macworld. I guess it's better to let the year-round marketing do it's job for the Christmas season and then announce a new product.

Google bombing... sort of.

It's like Google bombing in that it's totally irrelevant, but without all the hard work. So I'm checking the referring links coming to my older blog (but one I still update every once in a while), and I see a Google search for... well, go here to see what I'm talking about.

SOURCE: My Xanga Sitemeter

Finally done

I'm finally done with my genetics homework that was due on Tuesday. This is not good, because it cut into a lot of my Thanksgiving break, not to mention the other work I have been intending to ruin my break with. I'm exaggerating.. there wasn't that much work I planned on doing but rather hoped to get done.

I've had something of a blogging backlog of stuff I wanted to talk about, but I'm not confident in my ability to express it. Ok, first of all, at the NCTTA (National College Table Tennis Association) NYC Divisional meet at FIT this last Sunday, Rutgers tied for first place out of 7 schools competing, beating Columbia and losing to Polytechnic (which lost to Columbia, but beat us). We had a strong team, with Adam Formal, Kiley Hsu, Shuo Pan, and Iuliana Radu leading on our varsity team. Even though in some cases we lost 1st 2nd singles, we romped the other schools (especially Polytechnic) in the doubles. However, all the school that competed did so in good spirit. I wasn't playing on the A-team or the B-team, but I was there for a very legitimate purpose lest you think otherwise.

Especially heartening was the camaraderie among our team members. This is especially different from the other semesters we competed in Columbia--ones where we faced different, some stronger, some weaker opponents. The B-team was a volunteer one. The A-team had been practicing together for many hours and made sacrifices to go. Crucial was our newest addition, Adam was giving sound advice, cheers, and encouragement. There were times when it looked bad for our team early on in the meet, but the tougher times were soon over and we were just relaxing and waiting for the other results to come in.

Out B-team, consisting of Will Francis, Ashiq Damani, Ethan Chen, and Firoze Mehta did great as well. Their journey was very much similar in their initial challenge but rose to supremacy, with some luck. We lost 1st and 2nd singles, but came back in the 3rd, 4th, and doubles.

Being home is nice but I'm doing even less than I do at school :/

SOURCE: The swirling void

POP for Gmail

Gizmodo : Gmail Enables POP (For Some) —> I get Gmail on my Pocket PC. Anyone have this feature yet? How is it? I'm still waiting.

UPDATE 11/16/04 2:21 AM: I just got this feature so I haven't fully tested it out. UPDATE 11/17/04 5:20 PM: After lots of struggling, it works like a charm (relative to how it used to work, I mean). While I thought it would just give you what was in your inbox, the POP client just downloads everything there: Drafts, Sent messages, Spam, etc. I can't complain, though. Oh, and for some reason, whenever I send and receive, my old messages go away. Anyone who's had problems getting connected, I'd suggest you check out this thread from PPCT.

What got it working for me was a combination of:

following directions (use @gmail.com as part of your username);

skipping the auto-setup part in the Inbox app and;

setting Gmail to enable access only to mail received from now on,

If it still doesn't work, reset it by disabling and re-enabling from the "Fowarding and POP" tab under Settings.

BTW: Cast your vote!

UPDATE 3/17/05: Gmail's plain html version works now, so forget POP... just go to https://gmail.google.com!

Konfabulator!

Previously only available for Macs, Konfabulator is here for Windows! It allows you to bring to bear the power of developers all across the world who just want to make your life easier and happy. What's it all about? Widgets!!! Widgets are little applications that float translucentyly above your windows, or flash into view at the touch of a button, they do anything from display the current weather, stock quotes, on-screen post-its, music player and more. Check out The Widget Gallery to see what's available.

You can even write your own widgets easily (relative term). Mac users who can't wait for the next version of OS X, Windows users who are sane, and anyone who's ever heard of dashboard, support Konfabulator.

Is Dashboard a rip off Konfabulator? Not exactly.

SOURCE: The JavaScript Weblog

Not just a wrinkle... (Does this count as a lie?)

According to The Hill, the bulge on Bush's back was confirmed to be a strap for his bullet-proof vest and not a prompting device. This makes sense, because of all places, putting it in his shoulder blades makes no sense, especially if the earpiece was wireless.

However, when asked about it, Bush said he didn't know what it was. Even his tailor admitted it was part of the suit. Salon talked to a NASA satellite photo analyst and confirmed with simple image adjustment that the bulge was indeed "something" that looked like it had wires, but hadn't proof about exactly what it was.

Bush's spokespeople say it was a security measure to not reveal that he had a bullet proof vest on, but Michael from Discourse.net says that the real reason "is that they knew it looks cowardly and that would have been bad for the image. (If the security rationale were true, they wouldn’t admit the truth the day after the eleciton unless Bush never plans to stir from the White House. )"

I guess this is just one of those insignificant lies politicians say. Would the public really have been suprised that Bush was wearing a bullet-proof vest? What else have they been withholding from the public?

SOURCE: Discourse.net: The Bulge Was Not Tinfoil - It Was a Trope

UPDATE 2:20 AM EST 1/7/04: So, now people are saying it's a wearable defibrillator. I can see why people wouldn't want this information to leak out, as it presents does present another security weakness. Some would contest whether the Secret Service has that much to worry about, as G. Schochet, my Poli-Sci 101 professor kiddingly pointed out. He emphatically warned the class that no one should assasinate George W. Bush. The reason? That VP Dick Cheney was much much worse and that the idea of him succeeding W was George Bush's greatest bullet proof vest. [via Technology Review]

Originally stamped 02:39 PM Nov 07, 2004, but bumped temporarily.

HTC's new Pocket PC Phone Edition Device

What an amazing device. It's just the right size and has an integrated 1.3 MP camera, tons of memory, and the new Intel processor (XScale PXA270).

Source: English Translation (courtesy of Google and Pocket PC Thoughts).

UPDATE 8:21 PM EST 11/8/04 (from PPCT): Get it (with 64MB RAM) at Expansys for US $619.95.

UPDATE 9:35 PM EST 11/13/04 (from PPCT): More nice pictures of a version to be sold in China: Link

Now that the contest is over...

I don't know what to think at the conclusion of the first presidential election where I really thought it mattered who won or lost. First of all, I don't think it's the end of the world that Bush won. I'm very disappointed he did, but in the end, I think the divisions were heightened by the campaign rhetoric. I do look back and remember all the times I looked forward to voting our president out of office, but that wish never materialized.

So what do I think was at stake? All I thought was that if Kerry won, it would reaffirm to me that people in this country were generally discerning people who saw that the democrats really had most people's best interests in mind. I am more or less disappointed that the majority of the American people felt differently, but feel there is definitely room for improvement in the democratic party. On the war in Iraq, I definitely see the potential for a recreated more democratic state in Iraq. However, I particularly resented the administration's manipulation of public opinion about the War or Terrorism to brashly and inefficiently wage a costly war. I felt the heavy tax cuts levied by Bush were not designed to bolster the economy, but merely to reward the rich.

On a good note, I've learned the importance, and also some of the futility of debating within the stict confines of having only two imperfect parties. I've met some interesting people and spent so many hours debating various topics with people, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to do so. Whether or not I voted for the right person we'll never know, but in four years, it'll become cleared whether or not the Republican economic agenda actually worked. Let's hope that Bush's values and moral imperatives will win the day in the long run.

I don't know if I learned or gained any special insights during this election. I do believe that those darned exit polls screwed the democrats over by giving them a false sense of confidence, but nothing can be done about that now.

The concession speech.

UPDATE 11:42 PM: Jeff Jarvis says that we shouldn't blame the bloggers for their transparency. Withholding information isn't the right thing to do. Overconfidence, if anything, is still to blame in Ohio.